Software Installation on DD-WRT

One great thing about this router is its loaded hardware specifications: 400MHz processor, 32MB flash ROM, 64MB RAM and most important of all, a USB port. All these make the router a very versatile little Linux box with tons of capabilities. 

However, a confusing thing that inexperienced users may not know, the CPU in the router is MIPS (MIPS in big-endian), while the popular Broadcom routers(such as Linksys WRT54G) are MIPSEL (MIPS in little-endian). I don’t want to go into technical detail here, but just remember, even though both are MIPS, they’re totally different and software compiled for Broadcom routers WILL NOT work on this and other Atheros based devices.

Thanks to the OpenWrt guys, with some effort, we can now use the OpenWRT's optware software installer.

Here we come to another downfall of DD-WRT. OpenWRT will allow you to edit the on-board flash ROM and thus install anything you want directly to your router. DD-WRT doesn't provide this type of access, so we have to install programs to an external USB device. The previous blog poster claims that the USB is faster than the internal flash. This may be true for very high-speed drives, but I'd like to see numbers before also making that claim.

Let's get started & keep in mind that this set of instructions is for DD-WRT ONLY as it is not needed for OpenWRT.

1. Prepare the USB disk
   You must format your USB device to ext2 or ext3 (recommended) before plugging into the router. Any Linux live CD should do the trick and I personally recommend GParted, which can be installed in CD or USB disk, and is also available on Ubuntu live CDs.
   
   
2. Set up DD-WRT accordingly
   A. Enable SSH access.
        Under Services > Service > Secure Shell.
        * Enable SSHd.
        * Click “Apply Settings”.
   
   
   
   B. Set USB Support
        Under Services > USB.
        * Enable Core USB Support
        * Disable USB 1.1 Support (UHCI)
        * Disable USB 1.1 Support (OHCI)
        * Enable USB 2.0 Support
        * Disable USB Printer Support (you can enable it if you want)
        * Enable USB Storage Support
        * Enable Automatic Drive Mount
        * Set Disk Mount Point to /mnt     * Click “Apply Settings”.
   
   C. Disable the jffs partition
        Under Administration > Management
        * Disable “JFFS2 Support”.
        * Click “Apply Settings”.
   
   
3. Now plug in the USB drive and reboot the router.
   
   
4. After rebooting, login the router with PuTTY.
   Fill in router’s IP (192.168.1.1 in most cases), leave everything else on default (port 22 and Connection type SSH) and click “Open”.
   The login username is always root and password is the web password that you set.
   
   
5. Now create and prepare the necessary folders
   Type the commands below in PuTTY
   
   cd /mnt
   mkdir etc opt root
   touch optware.enable
   chmod 755 etc opt root
   mkdir opt/lib
   chmod 755 opt/lib
   cp -a /etc/* /mnt/etc/
   mount -o bind /mnt/etc /etc
   mount -o bind /mnt/opt /jffs
   
   So now we have writable /etc and /jffs folders, but only while they both are on the USB drive. All other folders -- especially /bin, /usr and /sbin – will be left untouched to keep the change minimal. The /etc folder will also be handled with extra caution.
   
   
6. Install the required libraries for the router and opkg 
   Run:
   cd /tmp
   wget http://http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1/ar71xx/packages/libc_0.9.30.1-43.10_ar71xx.ipk
   wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1/ar71xx/packages/opkg_576-1_ar71xx.ipk
   ipkg install libc_0.9.30.1-43.10_ar71xx.ipk opkg_576-1_ar71xx.ipk
   
   Don't worry if you get a string of errors like below, it is fine as long as the last 2 lines are present:
   
   ERROR: File not found: //usr/local/lib/ipkg/lists/whiterussian
   You probably want to run `ipkg update'
   ERROR: File not found: //usr/local/lib/ipkg/lists/non-free
   You probably want to run `ipkg update'
   ERROR: File not found: //usr/local/lib/ipkg/lists/backports
   You probably want to run `ipkg update'
   /bin/ipkg: line 1184: sort: not found
   Unpacking libc...Done.
   Configuring libc...Done.
   ERROR: File not found: //usr/local/lib/ipkg/lists/whiterussian
   You probably want to run `ipkg update'
   ERROR: File not found: //usr/local/lib/ipkg/lists/non-free
   You probably want to run `ipkg update'
   ERROR: File not found: //usr/local/lib/ipkg/lists/backports
   You probably want to run `ipkg update'
   /bin/ipkg: line 1184: sort: not found
   Unpacking opkg...Done.
   Configuring opkg...Done.
   
   Run these commands to create the configuration file for our newly installed opkg:
   
   cat > /etc/opkg.conf << EOF
   src/gz snapshots http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1-rc5/ar71xx/packages/
   dest root /opt
   dest ram /tmp
   lists_dir ext /tmp/var/opkg-lists
   EOF
   
   Notice the underlined /opt. In the future, all software will be installed to the /opt folder. The /jffs folder is only necessary for initial setup.
   
   Let's make sure everything works properly:
   
   umount /jffs
   mount -o bind /mnt/root /tmp/root
   mount -o bind /mnt/opt /opt
   export LD_LIBRARY_PATH='/opt/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib'
   opkg update
   
   You should get as a result:
   
   Downloading http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1-rc4/ar71xx/packages/Packages.gz.
   Inflating http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03.1-rc4/ar71xx/packages/Packages.gz.
   Updated list of available packages in /tmp/var/opkg-lists/snapshots.
   
   
7. Set the startup script to make the changes take effect each time upon boot
   Under DD-WRT’s web interface, Administration > Commands, copy the following script into the field and click 'Save Startup'. Make sure to set the correct drive mounting.
   
   #!/bin/sh
   sleep 5
   
   #mount -t ext3 -o noatime /dev/discs/disc0/disc /mnt
   #mount -t ext3 -o noatime /dev/sda /mnt
   #mount -t ext3 -o noatime /dev/sda1 /mnt
   #mount -t ext3 -o noatime /dev/discs/disc0/part1 /mnt
   #!!!! This is only needed for manual drive mounting !!!
   
   sleep 2
   if [ -f /mnt/optware.enable ]; then
   mount -o bind /mnt/etc /etc
   mount -o bind /mnt/root /tmp/root
   mount -o bind /mnt/opt /opt
   else
   exit
   fi
   if [ -d /opt/usr ]; then
   export LD_LIBRARY_PATH='/opt/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib'
   export PATH='/opt/bin:/opt/usr/bin:/opt/sbin:/opt/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin'
   else
   exit
   fi
   
   Reboot to make the change take effect.
   
   
8. Set the initial variables
   Login with PuTTY then copy/paste the commands below to PuTTY window to create a script running each time when user root logins.
   
   cat > /mnt/root/.profile << EOF
   export LD_LIBRARY_PATH='/opt/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib:/opt/usr/local/lib'
   export PATH='/sbin:/opt/bin:/opt/usr/bin:/opt/sbin:/opt/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/opt/usr/local/bin'
   export PS1='\[\033[01;31m\]\u@\h \[\033[01;34m\]\W \$ \[\033[00m\]'
   export TERMINFO='/opt/usr/share/terminfo'
   EOF
   
   The above script will set the variables for us and also provide a nice colored command line prompt. Now exit the current PuTTY window and connect again, if you see a colored prompt then it's working correctly. Make sure the line breaks set correctly, each line between cat and EOF should start with export and end with '.
   
   Run opkg update directly and it should work now - no need to set the lengthy variables each time.
   
   Also, if you're not familar with vi, time to get the nano editor:
   opkg install nano
   Then type nano to launch it.
   
   Extra: Running installed software automatically at boot
   Since our DD-WRT startup script does nothing more than mounting several folders. We don't use it to launch any programs, simply because its not necessary as DD-WRT has a feature that will run any script during startup once it's in a correct location with correct name.
   
   To run a script, just put the scripts in /opt/etc/init.d and name them in the format S##ScriptName. The ## is two digit number from 00 to 99. Scripts with a smaller number will run first. For example, to run Samba file server and p910nd printer server as services, we just need to create two startup scripts:
   /opt/etc/init.d/p910nd
   /opt/etc/init.d/samba
   
   then make symbolic links:
   ln -s /opt/etc/init.d/p910nd /opt/etc/init.d/S30p910nd
   ln -s /opt/etc/init.d/samba /opt/etc/init.d/S50samba
    
   In this example, p910nd will start up before samba. If you no longer need a program to run at startup, just delete the symbolic links (S30p910nd/S50samba), but keep the original startup script so it can be easily recovered should you want to enable them again. The program can also be launched directly by running its corresponding script (/opt/etc/init.d/p910nd and /opt/etc/init.d/samba).

Guides for Samba server and the p910nd printer server will be detailed in future articles. This is just to get you an idea how the startup control system works.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd also like to thank dynek @ DD-WRT forums for pieces taken from his thread: http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=86912 also a great place for any issues.

Posted in: dd-wrt,opkg,Repost